


Falling

by telperion_15



Category: Primeval
Genre: Developing Relationship, First Kiss, M/M, episode tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-31
Updated: 2012-01-31
Packaged: 2017-10-30 10:26:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/330720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/telperion_15/pseuds/telperion_15
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It took quite some time before James Lester realised just how screwed he really was.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Falling

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written as a birthday fic for knitekat, for the prompt 'Lester/Ryan, descent'.
> 
> Spoilers for Series 1 up to episode 1.05.

  
It took quite some time before James Lester realised just how screwed he really was.  
  
But having realised it didn’t change things. It didn’t change the fact that there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
It started like this:  
  
A polite knock on his partially open office door drew Lester’s attention from his computer screen. When he looked up he immediately recognised the person standing in the doorway as a soldier. The man was wearing civilian clothing, but there was no mistaking it. A certain uprightness in his posture and watchfulness in his eyes marked him as obviously military, despite the lack of insignia, uniform, or weapons.  
  
“Captain Ryan, I presume?” Lester said, inclining his head just enough for it to be construed as an invitation.  
  
“Yes, sir,” replied Ryan, accepting the invite and stepping further into the room.  
  
“Take a seat. You’ve been informed why you are here?”  
  
“Yes, sir,” said Ryan as he sat.  
  
“And you believed it?”  
  
“My superiors are not in the habit of playing hoaxes, sir. Especially not such imaginative ones.”  
  
Ryan’s expression didn’t change, and no hint of criticism crept into his tone. Lester raised one eyebrow minutely, but decided not to pursue that particular conversational pathway any further.  
  
“Good,” he said instead. “Well, Captain, I’m afraid there’s not much more information I can give you myself about how matters stand. Much as I hate to admit it, we’re all rather fumbling in the dark here. You and your men will follow our civilian contingent to the Forest of Dean, and you will accompany Professor Cutter through the anomaly. Any questions?”  
  
“What kind of man is this Professor Cutter?” Ryan asked, apparently not deeming it necessary to enquire further after the anomalies or dinosaurs. Lester approved. This man was obviously a soldier through and through. He would do his duty and he would do it with a cool head.  
  
“A troublesome one, I’m afraid,” replied Lester. “Stubborn, opinionated, and far too prone to doing things his own way. And all that was obvious only five minutes after I met him.” He gave Ryan a sharp look. “Cutter is as liable to do something stupid as sensible. I expect you to keep a close eye on him on the other side of the anomaly. And most importantly of all, _bring him back in one piece_. I might dislike the man already, but losing him to the Permian is not acceptable, unfortunately.”  
  
Ryan nodded, and Lester thought he detected an approving flicker of Ryan’s own in the man’s eyes. He wanted to be needled – he didn’t need a soldier’s approval – but found he couldn’t be.  
  
Instead, he nodded back to Ryan. “Report to Claudia Brown once you reach the anomaly site,” he said. “She’ll apprise you of the details of the current situation.”  
  
“Yes, sir.” Ryan stood.  
  
“Oh, and Captain?”  
  
“Sir?”  
  
“Do try not to disappoint me. I do so hate to be disappointed.”  
  
“I’ll do my best, sir.”  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
Captain Ryan proved to be anything but a disappointment. Oh, things didn’t run smoothly, and there were one or two incidents that Lester might have hoped would be avoided, but on the whole he was inclined to put those down to the vagaries of working with a ragtag band of civilians, or even, rather annoyingly, sheer bad luck. On the whole Ryan and his men seemed to be coping very well, and Lester knew the captain would have to be a superhero _and_ a saint to keep things running like clockwork in such a dangerous and unpredictable situation.  
  
Not that he’d ever acknowledge that to anyone, of course.  
  
“Good work today, Captain,” Lester said. “I’m happy to hear that you managed to prevent Cutter getting himself or anyone else killed again.” He didn’t bother to inject any sincerity into his voice, and then wondered if he’d imagined the tiny quirk of Ryan’s lips before the soldier answered.  
  
“Thank you, sir. I did my best, as you asked.”  
  
“Of course, it might have been better if you hadn’t let Stephen Hart go running off into the tunnels by himself in the first place,” Lester continued. It wouldn’t do to stroke Ryan’s ego too much.  
  
“My apologies, sir. He got the jump on us. It won’t happen again.”  
  
“See that it doesn’t. I would also rather that you didn’t let Cutter formulate any more mad schemes such as today’s escapade,” Lester said. “Although I allow that it was unfortunately necessary to save Hart’s life,” he conceded, before Ryan could apologise again.  
  
“You have my full agreement with that sentiment, sir,” replied Ryan blandly, although Lester was sure he’d seen the twitching of Ryan’s mouth this time.  
  
“I believe that when you were in the Permian you had to punch Professor Cutter in order to drag him back through the anomaly, is that right?”  
  
“Yes, sir. I’m afraid it is.”  
  
“Well, Captain, in light of today’s madness, you have my full permission to employ such tactics again, should they be necessary.”  
  
“Thank you, sir.” Now there was no mistaking Ryan’s smile. “I’ll bear that in mind, sir.”  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
“I’m sorry about the loss of your man, Captain.”  
  
“Thank you, sir. He was a good soldier. He’ll be missed.”  
  
“I’ll be contacting his family later. Is there anything you’d specifically like me to tell them? That the Official Secrets Act will allow me to, of course.”  
  
Ryan hesitated, and then spoke out flatly. “If you don’t mind, sir, I’d rather contact them myself. Pardon me for saying, but I knew the man better than you did, and think his family would appreciate hearing from me rather than…” He broke off.  
  
“Rather than from a suit in a comfortable office who barely even knew the man’s name, you mean,” Lester finished for him.  
  
“Sorry, sir.”  
  
“No, Captain, you are quite correct,” Lester said. He could see that he’d surprised the other man, and to tell the truth, he’d surprised himself somewhat. He suspected that if he’d heard that description of himself from Cutter’s lips, the pair of them would be in the middle of yet another argument right now. But Lester understood Ryan’s desire to speak to the dead man’s family himself. And he couldn’t deny the fact that he _had_ barely known the soldier in question, and that any platitudes he might offer his relatives would only be empty ones.  
  
“You have my permission, Ryan,” he continued quietly. “Speak to them yourself. But if you would pass on my condolences, I would be grateful.”  
  
“Thank you, sir. I’ll do that.” There was another short pause. “Sir, about Helen Cutter…”  
  
“I’ll be dealing with her,” Lester told him.  
  
“Cutter thinks we all betrayed him, you know.”  
  
“Well, in blunt terms, I suppose we did,” Lester replied. “Of course, it would never occur to him that his wife betrayed us – betrayed _him_ – first.” He looked at Ryan. “Is this going to cause problems, Captain? I’d hate to think that you were becoming _attached_.”  
  
“No, sir, of course not. I take my orders from you and Ms. Brown.”  
  
“That is correct. I’m glad to hear it.”  
  
Lester’s mind flashed back to earlier that day, standing in the living room of the house where the anomaly was located, debating with Cutter the best way to bring Helen back while Captain Ryan had stood at his back, a calm, competent presence. He hadn’t quite realised it at the time, but he realised now that he had been glad of the other man’s silent support.  
  
Captain Ryan was an asset to the anomaly project, there was no doubt about that.  
  
“Helen Cutter needed to be brought back, sir. That much is true.” Ryan’s words cut across Lester’s minor lapse in attention, bringing him back to the present.  
  
“Of course she did,” Lester replied, the words coming out somewhat more sharply than he’d intended.  
  
But Ryan showed no reaction to them, and Lester abruptly waved him away. “That’s all, Captain. You’re dismissed.”  
  
Ryan nodded and left, and Lester resolutely turned his thoughts to the conundrum that was Helen Cutter.  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
Lester sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to will away the headache he could feel forming behind his eyes.  
  
It had not been a good day, to put it mildly. While there had been civilian deaths as a consequence of the anomalies before, this was the first time that civilian had been known to a member of the team. Had in fact been a close friend of one of them.  
  
Cutter seemed to think he’d persuaded Temple to stay with the project, but Lester wasn’t pinning his hopes on that. Temple could just as easily change his mind again and decide that it was all getting too much for him.  
  
A moment later, Lester thought to ask himself why he cared so much. Temple was annoying at the best of times, and when he and Cutter put their heads together, who knew what kind of chaos would follow.  
  
Still Lester couldn’t deny that the young man did actually contribute some useful skills. It would be a shame to lose him.  
  
Lester couldn’t entirely hold back the bitter laugh that tried to escape his mouth. Who would have thought, a couple of months ago, that he’d actually care about any of this so-called ‘team’ he’d gathered together? He must be losing his grip.  
  
“Sir?”  
  
Lester looked up quickly. “Ah, Captain Ryan, something I can do for you?” He tried to hide his relief at the soldier’s presence.  
  
“Reporting as normal, sir,” Ryan replied, looking ever so slightly confused.  
  
Lester hesitated, and then sighed again. “I think that can wait for tomorrow, don’t you, Captain. Drink?”  
  
Apparently he’d managed to surprise Ryan again. It seemed to be becoming a habit. Lester refused to examine his motives in making the offer, and instead focussed on opening the cabinet in the corner of his office and extracting a bottle of scotch and two glasses.  
  
“Thank you, sir.” Ryan said after a moment. He took a seat without being asked, and then accepted the glass that was passed to him.  
  
Lester briefly thought about making some kind of toast, but then dismissed it and took a healthy mouthful of the scotch. The alcohol was undoubtedly a bad idea, what with his burgeoning headache, but Lester couldn’t bring himself to care. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Ryan take a mouthful too, his eyebrows raising slightly when he detected the quality of the scotch.  
  
“I’m sorry about today, sir,” Ryan offered, after a short silence.  
  
“Not your fault, Captain,” Lester said. “I’ve long since learned that members of the public possess very little common sense when it comes to the strange and unexplainable. And Connor’s friend did not seem inclined to buck that trend. Quite the contrary, in fact.”  
  
He wondered whether Ryan would find his words too harsh, and then shook his head slightly against the fact that once again he found himself actually caring about a member of the team, and what they thought.  
  
He glanced quickly at Ryan, and found Ryan looking steadily back at him, having finished his drink. There was another moment of silence, in which Lester felt like Ryan was trying to tell him something he was completely missing the sense of, and then the soldier stood up.  
  
“Thank you for the drink, sir,” he said. “I’ll report as normal tomorrow then, shall I?”  
  
“That will be fine, Captain,” Lester replied, and then blinked as Ryan walked up to him, pushing further into Lester’s personal space than he had any right to as a subordinate.  
  
“Don’t worry about Temple,” Ryan said. “He’s stronger than he looks. He won’t leave.”  
  
“Yes, thank you, Captain,” said Lester, not at all sure what was going on here.  
  
“And don’t worry about Helen Cutter either. We’ll get her next time.”  
  
“We had her this time,” Lester muttered bitterly, before he could stop himself.  
  
“You couldn’t take the risk, sir,” Ryan told him. “What if she’d been right about the sabre-tooths?”  
  
It took Lester a moment to realise that this was Ryan’s way of telling him that the day’s events weren’t _his_ fault either. And wasn’t it funny how he hadn’t actually been conscious of the fact he was blaming himself until Ryan was trying to absolve him of that blame?  
  
“Thank you for the sentiment, Captain,” he said, trying for wry and ending up at bitter. “But as the person in ultimate charge of the anomaly project, I’m afraid that everything is my fault. Including this. Don’t worry,” he added, “I’m used to it.”  
  
Ryan gave him a look that lasted several seconds, and then abruptly gave Lester’s arm a comforting squeeze. “You couldn’t take the risk,” he repeated, and then he was stepping away, towards the door. “I’ll see you tomorrow, sir.”  
  
“Yes, thank you, Captain,” Lester replied faintly. He barely noticed as Ryan left the office, not able to tear his eyes away from the spot on his arm where Ryan’s fingers had been curled around it seconds earlier. Was it his imagination, or could he still feel a lingering warmth there? He brushed his fingers over the fabric of his shirt, and then frowned to himself.  
  
Damn.  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
Lester managed to avoid Ryan for the next few weeks, aided by a convenient lack of anomalies, and the convenient presence of Claudia Brown, on whom he could palm off some of his peskier duties, like dealing with subordinates he was trying to keep away from.  
  
But then, almost exactly a month after the incident with the dodos, another anomaly _did_ open, letting loose a pteranodon and a flock of its smaller, uglier cousins on a country club. Even then, Lester felt justified in letting Ms. Brown handle things. There was no need for him to start getting his hands dirty. Although he did suspect her of hanging up on him when he’d tried to phone for an update on proceedings. He’d have to have words with her about that.  
  
And anyway, by all accounts things had gone pretty well. Yes, there had been a couple of casualties, and yes, Helen Cutter had blown up part of the club’s hotel, but all in all, that kind of collateral damage was pretty minor for an anomaly incident.  
  
So he had no qualms about leaving the last loose ends for Claudia to tie up, and actually going home on time for once.  
  
“Sir, can I talk to you for a moment?”  
  
Oh, who the hell was he kidding?  
  
Lester turned slowly to face Ryan. The soldier was leaning against one of the concrete pillars that held up the roof of the underground car park, partially in shadow, which was why Lester hadn’t noticed him straight away.  
  
“What can I do for you, Captain?” he asked.  
  
Ryan stepped more fully into the light. “It’s a personal matter, sir,” he said. “Perhaps we could discuss it somewhere more…private?”  
  
For a moment, Lester thought about refusing Ryan, telling him he didn’t have time, or he didn’t think it would be a very good idea. But then he took a proper look at the serious expression on Ryan’s face, and remembered that one of the day’s casualties had been another of Ryan’s men, a medic who had been killed by the flock of smaller pterosaurs.  
  
He felt a sudden small burst of shame at the way he’d been keeping Ryan at arm’s length recently, at the cowardly way he’d been avoiding the other man.  
  
James Lester didn’t _do_ shame. So perhaps it was that that made him nod and gesture towards his car. “Will my place do?”  
  
Ryan’s expression morphed into something unreadable, but all he did was nod, and then follow Lester to his car, sliding into the passenger seat when Lester unlocked it.  
  
Not for the first time, Lester wondered what the hell he was getting himself into.  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
Drink in hand, Lester handed a second glass to Ryan, and then hovered ( _not_ nervously, he told himself) while Ryan took a sip and looked around Lester’s flat. He’d said he wanted to talk to Lester, in private, but now they were here he didn’t seem particularly anxious to start the conversation.  
  
Lester suppressed a sigh. It looked like would be up to him.  
  
“My condolences on the loss of your man,” he said, and then smiled bitterly. “I seem to be saying that to you a lot.”  
  
“The lads know what they’re getting into when they sign up,” Ryan replied flatly.  
  
“Will you contact his family, like last time?” Lester asked.  
  
“Already done it.” Ryan’s voice was still emotionless. “They know what they’re signing up for too.”  
  
“I can’t imagine that makes it any easier, though,” Lester said carefully.  
  
There was a pause, and then Ryan’s shoulders slumped. “No,” he admitted, “it doesn’t.” He took a healthy swig of his scotch (even better quality than the one Lester kept in his office). “It’s never easy,” he added.  
  
Lester didn’t really know what to say to that.  
  
Then Ryan appeared to shake off his melancholy, and made the effort to smile at Lester. The expression was strained, but it suited him – and that was a thought Lester felt it would be dangerous to examine too closely.  
  
“Anyway,” said the soldier, “that isn’t why I asked to speak to you.”  
  
“It was a personal matter, I believe you said,” Lester replied, suddenly determined not to act the coward again, no matter where it might lead.  
  
“Yes.” Ryan nodded. “And I think you know what that matter is.”  
  
Lester steeled himself. They were obviously on the same page, and he wasn’t going to beat around the bush.  
  
“I apologise, Captain, if I’ve made you uncomfortable in any way. I promise I will curb any inappropriate behaviour in future.”  
  
“Inappropriate behaviour?” Ryan blinked. “Sir…Lester…I don’t think your behaviour could be any more appropriate if you tried.”  
  
“So what is this about, then?” Lester asked, deeply confused, and horrified that he might have revealed something he shouldn’t.  
  
Ryan smiled suddenly – a proper, genuine smile – and if Lester thought it had suited him before, then that was nothing compared to now.  
  
“Just because you haven’t _done_ anything, doesn’t mean it isn’t obvious. I am trained in all kinds of observational skills, you know.”  
  
“Oh. Well, again, I apologise if…”  
  
“You don’t need to apologise,” Ryan cut in. “The reason I wanted to talk to you was because I want to know what we’re going to do about it.”  
  
“What _we’re_ going to do about it?” Lester repeated faintly. He was feeling rather off-balance, something that didn’t ordinarily happen to him. In the back of his mind he could hear a little voice (that sounded rather like himself when he was talking to Cutter) telling him disgustedly that this was what happened when you allowed yourself to _feel_ things about your subordinates. He knew he should be listening to the voice, but he rather felt like he wanted to listen to Ryan instead.  
  
“Yes, what _we’re_ going to do about it,” Ryan said. Then, abruptly, his smile dropped off his face. “That is, assuming you want there to be a ‘we’ at all. Because otherwise it seems that my own behaviour is a little inappropriate.  
  
But Lester was swiftly weighing up all the pros and cons of the situation (a skill that had come in useful many a time during his career), and while in reality there were rather more cons (including the one where apparently he had no control over his own emotions, faculties, or libido any more), there was one very large pro that cancelled most of them out.  
  
He put down his drink and stepped over to Ryan. “I think there are plenty of things ‘we’ can do about this,” he said. “Starting with...”  
  
Ryan’s lips met his halfway, and Lester quickly decided that he couldn’t think of any behaviour less inappropriate than this.


End file.
